-The Indian Express As the toll of human misery and suicide mounts, official estimates of farm losses due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms in March remain controversial, with hasty downward revision. Since these estimates are largely notional, without validation from field visits, such revision smacks of deliberate fiddling. On March 24, the agriculture ministry reported that crops on 18 million hectares — about 30 per cent of the rabi crops —...

-The Hindu Given the high investment and negative incentives such as input subsidies, small farmers have not benefited from government schemes. Everything about the suicide of the farmer from Dausa, Gajendra Singh, save the tragedy for his family, has been theatre — the very public venue, the occasion of a political rally, the politicians happily playing their populist cards, and the media’s focus on trivialities. The tragedy is being skilfully milked for...

-The Hindu Agriculture a State subject, Central help supplementary: Minister The Maharashtra government has reported 257 suicides by farmers in the State between January and March this year resulting from the agrarian crisis. “The government of Maharashtra has reported that 257 farmers have committed suicide in the State due to agrarian reasons during the period January to March 2015,” Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kundaria said in a written reply to a...

-DNA Maharashtra: The consistently untimely rainfall has disturbed the crop sowing pattern in Maharashtra, and farmers are clueless what to sow now. The distress has led to a rise in farmer suicides in the state. Kailash Patil, cotton growing farmer from Jalgaon, told dna, "We received rainfall throughout this year. We were trained to cultivate crops as kharif (monsoon – June and July) and rabi (winter crop). Through most of both the seasons,...

-PTI Leader of opposition in the Legislative Council and NCP leader Dhananjay Munde questioned the basis of the state government's report to the Centre, saying that on an average seven farmers were committing suicide every day. Congress and NCP on Monday slammed the Maharashtra government for stating in a report to the Centre that only three farmers committed suicide in the state following the hailstorm and unseasonal rains in the last...